Robert Louis Stevenson

by James Pope-Hennessy, Nigel Nicolson (Introduction)

Introduction by Nigel Nicolson. One of the best written biographies of Stevenson. A clean, unmarked and unclipped copy in a Brodart cover.

270 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

James Pope-Hennessy CVO was an Anglo-Irish biographer and travel writer.

Largely owing to his mother's influence, he decided to become a writer and left Oxford in 1937 without taking a degree. He went to work for the Catholic publishers Sheed & Ward as an editorial assistant. While working at the company's offices, in Paternoster Row in London, he worked on his first book, London Fabric (1939), for which he was awarded the Hawthornden Prize. During this period, he was involved in a circle of notable literary figures including Harold Nicolson, Raymond Mortimer and James Lees-Milne.

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, the author trawled in various family members, particularly Stevenson's wife and stepdaughter and it was as if the biography was for a group of people. I felt that Stevenson was portrayed as a shadowy invalid even though he achieve alot physically by travelling in often uncomfortable conditions.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and James Pope Hennessy is interesting too. He died (murdered) before the book was finished. There seems to be little written about RLS and only one recent biog that had bad reviews. So this is it. Lovely picture of a fey bohemian university student in Edinburgh in the late 19thC, slender, elegant and beautiful. (Elegant in figure. His dress was rather shabby!) He was such an attractive personality and so frail for all of his short life. He had so much more literature in him. I feel that he had not got into his stride when he died. And this biog is so brief. What with a dearth of RLS writing and a dearth of biog material and a love of RLS I am left unsatisfied. But I so enjoyed this biography.

The last section of this book seemed rushed and incomplete. There was a lot of information thrown together and not developed properly. It did not do justice to either RLS or to Pope Hennessy.

I have learned to call George Bernard Shaw Bernard and now RLS is Louis, pronounced Lewis! I will now know how to address them if I meet them in the after life! G